Singapore Casino Controls May Fuel Other Bets, Experts Say

A blackjack table inside the Resorts World Sentosa casino in Singapore.

SINGAPORE – Since betting big on casino gambling two years ago, Singapore has taken a tough line on locals seeking to make a quick buck at its gaming centers, including restricting access for some residents. But while its stringent methods have helped keep casino-related excesses under control, some observers fear the regulations might be fueling other gambling ills beyond the city-state’s glitzy integrated resorts.

Singapore’s two casinos—intended to help draw tourists and create jobs in the local service sector—have certainly given a shot of adrenaline to the city-state’s increasingly vibrant social scene, lifting tourist arrivals to a record last year. But a number of psychiatrists and counselors fear that policymakers may be focusing too much on the casinos when it comes to tackling gambling addiction.

“The casinos have taken more than the necessary attention from other gambling activities,” said Thomas Lee, a gambling counselor at The Resilienz Mind clinic. “We’ve hardly heard (from the government) about the lotteries or horse racing, for example.”

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After lifting a longstanding casino ban in 2005 against fervent public opposition, the Singapore government has introduced a raft of measures to tackle casino-gambling addiction, including voluntary and mandatory entry bans, entry levies for citizens and permanent residents, bans on casino advertising that targets locals, and social programs discouraging heavy gambling.

But “what about other forms of gambling?” said Dr. Lee, who is also a former chief of the Addiction Medicine Department at Singapore’s Institute of Mental Health. “The government has been too focused on tackling casino gambling.”

An official survey on gambling habits, published in February, found in 2011 that lotteries were the most popular games among Singapore citizens and permanent residents ages 18 and above. Some 38% of locals had played “4D”—a game that involves guessing the winning four-digit combinations in weekly draws—within 12 months of the survey. About 28% gamble on “TOTO,” a weekly game in which players pick six numbers from one to 45. In contrast, table games at Singapore’s two casinos draw just 4% of locals, while jackpot machines on those premises attract just 3%.

The survey suggested that government social safeguards have had some effect in controlling gambling, albeit with mixed results. The overall gambling rate among locals eased to 47% in 2011 from 54% in 2008. But the data also pointed to more low-income players betting large sums and frequent gamblers playing more often.

Efforts to obtain official comment on whether the government is dedicating enough energy to minimizing problem gambling in lotteries and other non-casino games were not immediately successful. All legal non-casino gambling activities in the city-state are managed by the Singapore Totalisator Board, a statutory body that is the only organization here with legal rights to run lotteries, sports betting and horse-racing operations. Proceeds are steered into community development projects; the board’s website says it works to ensure the betting operations it oversees “are conducted with honesty and integrity.”

Authorities have responded to reports of problem gambling with more safeguards, including plans announced last month to ban 15,000 more people, mainly the poor and unemployed, from the two casinos— Genting Singapore PLC’s Resorts World Sentosa and Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s Marina Bay Sands. That ban adds to the 28,000 people already barred on government orders, including people who are bankrupt and people receiving long-term government financial aid.

“The government’s intention was to protect vulnerable Singaporeans from the worst effects of the casinos, and to this end they have succeeded to a large extent,” said Munidasa Winslow, a psychiatrist and executive director at mental-health consultancy Promises. “We do have a gambling problem in many forms, but they are mainly looking at it at the casino leveI—I guess that’s because the casinos are the fastest way that someone can go from normality to being out of control.”

Nonetheless, authorities should step up measures against other forms of gambling such as illegal sports betting and internet gambling, the psychiatrist said. “My own suspicions are that the vast majority of the people who are vulnerable—like the poor and the elderly—are spending more of their money on TOTO and 4D and other games.”

One area of growing concern is internet gambling, which can throw up significant policy-making challenges given the difficulty of detecting and policing such activity, said Sally Gainsbury, a research fellow at Australia’s Southern Cross University. A recent report by U.K.-based Global Betting and Gaming Consultants showed that Singapore residents lost $357.2 million to online gambling websites in 2011, up from $312.5 million in 2010 and $271.5 million in 2009.

Authorities have indicated recently that they are aware of at least some new gambling trends that could pose challenges for the city-state. In February, the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports flagged internet gambling as an “emerging concern,” but conceded that the problem was difficult to tackle given the private nature of the activity, and the high internet usage by the city-state’s technologically savvy population.

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